Trees, shrubs, woody vines or herbs (the latter occasionally fleshy myco- parasites although often allegedly saprophytic). Leaves alternate but rarely opposite or whorled, simple, estipulate, coriaceous and persistent to membranous and deciduous; leaf scars usually with a single vascular bundle scar, nodes usually with one trace and one gap. Inflorescences basically racemose (either racemes, panicles, corymbs or flowers solitary); pedicels bibracteolate, subtended by a deciduous or persistent bract. Flowers mostly bisexual but rarely functionally unisexual (more rarely plants dioecious), actinomorphic or slightly zygomnorphic; mostly (4-)5(-7)-parted, typically obdiplostemonous, hypogynous or epigynous and with a typically biseriate perianth; sepals occasionally distinct or more typically calyx 4-5(-7)-lobed, often persistent, valvate, imbricate or reduplicate in bud; corolla occasionally distinct but more typically of 4-5(-7) united petals, commonly funnelform, campanulate or urceolate, and valvate, convolute or im- bricate in bud; stamens usually twice as many as the petals (or rarely just as many), borne on the edge of a nectariferous disc or rarely epipetalous, distinct or united, the anthers 2-celled, apparently inverting during development, dehisc- ing longitudinally or more typically by apical clefts or pores, often with distinct or connate tubules and often with terminal awns or abaxial spurs, pollen grains in tetrads or less frequently single (Monotropoideae); pistil (2)4-5(10)-carpel- late; stigma simple but occasionally weakly lobed, the style single, the ovary 1, superior or inferior, usually with as many locules as carpels or with twice as many locules as carpels or rarely loculate in lower portion and l-locular above the placentation axile, the ovules numerous or rarely solitary, anatropous to campy- lotropous with a single integumentary layer. Fruit a loculicidal or septicidal cap- sule, berry or drupe with a usually persistent, rarely accrescent and fleshy calyx; seeds usually small, anatropous, rarely winged or tailed.

Habit

Trees, shrubs, woody vines or herbs

Note

The Ericaceae is a family of about 100 genera and perhaps 3,000 species, widely distributed in the temperate regions of both hemispheres and in the tropics where it is more abundant in the mountains.